I finished most of my Secret Project yesterday, then sped out to Pasadena for An Evening With Groucho starring our buddy, Frank Ferrante. Frank oughta play closer to Los Angeles more often. The Pasadena Playhouse, which seats (I'm told) 686 people, was sold out with a waiting list long enough for many to not get in. Those who did get seats had a very good time as Mr. Ferrante came out on stage, chatted with us about his idol Groucho and then proceeded to miraculously transform himself into said idol. I'd recommend you rush to see him but it was just the one performance and I don't think he's doing another one until February or so next year. Keep an eye on his website for further info…and no, I'm not at all sick of seeing the same show because it's never quite the same show.

Can't tell you yet about the Secret Project but when I can, I will. I'll just say for now that it involves a Labor of Love, which is another way of describing something where there's not a lot of money but you don't care. You'd pay them for the honor. We're also a few weeks from me being able to tell you about a new monthly comic book I've agreed to write which almost falls into that category.

Here's the Knee Report for those of you who care about that part of me. I had the surgery on June 24 and had hoped to be largely healed by now. I'm not, probably due to all the stress I put on it at Comic-Con. Stairs can still be brutal. Level ground is unpredictable. The knee hurts or doesn't hurt based on no pattern I can discern. Icing it and swallowing Ibuprofen alters the ratio of painful steps to non-painful in favor of non-painful but it's still swollen and always a concern. And that's your Knee Report for today.

Between the con, the Secret Project and dealing with my knee, it's been pleasant to watch less news these last few weeks. I may try to do more of that. I shall also try to return to my usual density of blogging before this day is out. Thanks for checking back after my absence.

I'm going to be busy the next few days with a special project I can't talk about yet…but I'll let you know about it as soon as I can. Posting here may be light until the weekend. Please forgive me. When you hear what it is, you'll know why I had to do it.

(For those of you unfamiliar with the Ancient Internet Tradition that I invented and which almost no one else follows, the posting of an image of Campbell's Cream of Mushroom Soup denotes that the proprietor of a blog will be away from it for a short period. I trust you'll be able to find something else on the World Wide Web to keep you entertained…)

Norm Ornstein details some of the outrageous things Republicans in Congress are doing to try and sabotage Obamacare. They seem to be terrified that this thing is going to work well and that it might even help poor people.

Alex Seitz-Wald says that Senator Al Franken has left behind his rep as a comedian, comedy writer and silly person. He has, instead, become a serious, effective and popular member of the Senate who works hard and avoids the press. Interesting…

An interview with S. J. Perelman. If you don't know who that is, you should and not just because of his brief connections with the Marx Brothers…

As Lloyd Grove notes, Jay Leno is getting monster ratings these days, beating Letterman and Kimmel by pretty wide margins. I don't think that's because America is saying goodbye the way everyone tuned into Johnny's final months. For one thing, Johnny seemed to be going away forever, whereas no one expects Jay Leno to disappear from the face of Show Business. Secondly, Johnny's farewell shows felt like farewell shows with all his superstar guests stopping by for a final appearance before the King. Jay's just doing the same programs he'd be doing anyway, with guests who may reappear several times before he leaves in February. I think viewers are just enjoying his show more than the alternatives.

I have heard two rumors, each from multiple sources who didn't necessarily believe them but were passing them on. I don't necessarily believe them and I think that if one is true, the other isn't.

One is that it will soon be announced that Jimmy Fallon's ascension to The Tonight Show will be delayed a few months and that Jay will continue on 'til then. The reason is, of course, that while NBC doesn't feel they can renege on the hand-off and leave Jay in place indefinitely, they feel they can prolong those great ratings of his a little longer. Moreover, Jay and many key members of his staff are under contract until September and will be paid 'til then whether they do the show or not…so why not have them do the show a bit longer? (There's a possible reason why not and I'll get to it in a moment…)

The other rumor — and again, let's remember these are rumors sourced to no one — is an 11 PM Jay Leno talk show on Fox. There are many reasons why that would not happen, starting with Leno's age and the number of years it might take Fox to clear that time slot for him. Not so long ago, I thought Fox was unlikely…but I also thought the kind of ratings and demographics Jay is now getting were unlikely.

Anyway, this rumor has several parts. One is that many of the key Fox affiliates have told the parent network that they want Jay. Most of them have invested heavily in things like Seinfeld reruns for that hour and were reluctant to move them when an 11 PM Conan show was under discussion. Conan, however, would have been going to Fox from a position of failure, whereas Jay would be arriving with many, many years of winning his time slot. So, the buzz goes, they're looking at Jay's current numbers and saying they're willing to clear space for the guy.

Another part of the rumor is that Roger Ailes and Rupert Murdoch of Fox want Leno there. Both are vitally interested in electing Republicans to office. Both believe that appearances on late night TV can help that happen. Both, it is said, feel Leno is the only late night host who gives Republican guests a fair shake. When Murdoch a few years ago expressed an interest in purchasing The Wall Street Journal, many of his advisors told him it was a bad investment. He reportedly replied, "I don't care. I want it." And he made an acquisition that wasn't logical from a business standpoint.

And there's one last part of the rumor: NBC no longer owns their old Burbank studio, the building where Johnny did his show and where the Tonight Show segued to the Leno era. But Jay likes the offices and the crew there…and this part of the rumor says that Fox is offering or will offer to rent out the space so Jay and his crew can do their new show from the same facilities.

So are these rumors true? I'd bet they both aren't. If there's a real possibility of Leno winding up with an 11 PM Fox show, I would think NBC would not extend him. They would want to keep him off the air for the rest of his contract so his momentum would peter out, his staff would scatter and he wouldn't be able to plug his new show on his old show. But it would not surprise me if at least one of these rumors is under discussion. And it also wouldn't surprise me if Leno left in February and that was that.

Here's a YouTube video of Saturday's Cartoon Voices Panel at Comic-Con. It features Grey DeLisle, Scott Menville, Michael Leon-Wooley, Dave Boat, Kari Wahlgren, Chris Cox and a surprise guest who I bring on around 1:09 into it.

If you don't have time to watch the whole thing, you might want to watch this: Michael Leon-Wooley told one of the funniest anecdotes I've heard on one of these panels. Here's a link to when he starts telling it. I asked each of the actors to tell us something obscure they worked on.

But don't just watch Michael. Watch the whole thing. These people are really good…

Heidi MacDonald, who I somehow missed seeing at Comic-Con, reports on some of the comic book news from that event.

Our pal James H. Burns reveals what may be the real reason for why Bazooka Bubblegum had declining sales (Topps' stated rationale for virtually eliminating "Bazooka Joe and His Gang"). Not being a fan of the product, I don't share the nostalgia some have for Bazooka Joe but I recognize he was the fave comic character for a lot of folks.

Leonard Maltin describes his Comic-Con experiences. He leaves out the part about how so many people were thrilled to meet him and how he was friendly and charming to all.

Nate Silver has been just about spot-on at predicting elections and he has an impressive track record in sports…but as Daniel D'Addario notes, Silver's unlikely to ever be able to do that with the Academy Awards. I think there's a simpler explanation than what Mr. D'Addario presents. Silver's successful projections all evolve from taking polls and past data (voting records for elections, raw scoring for sports events) and crunching and analyzing it. But when he turns to the Oscars, there are no polls and the data is largely devoid of details. He can look at what won Best Picture every year but he doesn't know who voted for a film or by what margin it won. I don't think he even knows how many people voted in total. We know that Daniel Day-Lewis won for Best Actor this year but we don't know if he got 40% of the vote or 99%. Maybe he only beat out the second-place finisher by one vote, which would make his victory statistically insignificant when compared to the loss of that runner-up…and of course, we don't know who that runner-up was.

I"ll pay rapt attention to what Silver has to say about who'll win political offices. But his guess at the Oscars next year will be no better than anyone else's.

Here's a rather serious interview with Jonathan Winters…

Woody Allen is thinking about a return to stand-up comedy? Where do I buy a ticket to that?

What the heck's going on with Syria? Fred Kaplan says that just when things over there seem like they can't get any worse, they get worse.

We are sad to hear that the iconic statue of Rocky and Bullwinkle up on the Sunset Strip has been wrested from that location. It was in front of a building that used to house the Jay Ward studio and when that building was sold, the new owner allowed Moose and Squirrel to remain on the premises. But the statue is in need of serious repair so it's just been moved to an undisclosed location where the Dreamworks folks — who are now involved in producing films of the Ward characters — can have it fixed.

Where will it go then? There's talk of the TV Academy complex out in North Hollywood and that would certainly be appropriate…but I dunno. I'd like to see it go to a sillier and more visible location. I'd like to see it somewhere where people would pass it every day…like one of those buildings along Highland where it leads up to the Hollywood Bowl and Hollywood Freeway. Or along Hollywood Boulevard. Isn't there a place for it over in front of the Hollywood/Highland complex? Or near Sunset and Vine? How about that little park at the intersection where Wilshire Boulevard and Santa Monica Boulevard cross in Beverly Hills?

I won't complain if it's the TV Academy…but it just seems to me like the ideal place for a huge statue of Rocky and Bullwinkle is exactly where it shouldn't be. If you know what I mean…